The Upper Hand
by JayRain
Summary: VERY NSFW WARNING! Everything about Cailan and Anora's relationship is a power struggle, whether in the throne room or the bedroom. Especially in the bedroom.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This is decidedly NOT SAFE for work. But it has a funny story behind it. I have a Sim on Sims Social. His name is Cailan; my friend has an Anora Sim. They are in a relationship. One day Cailan went and flirted with Anora... and was thinking about handcuffs. My initial reaction was to giggle, but then I got to thinking about how everything in their relationship is about power struggle. And what would happen if Anora carried that over into the bedroom? So while there is some definite fluff and stuff going on here, I think about this mostly as another way of exploring their relationship, especially since Cailan's womanizing ways seem to define him.

* * *

><p><em>The Upper Hand<em>

"He was only trying to help," Anora said, daintily cutting into her roast. "You know father wants what is best for Ferelden and would brook no threat to this nation."

The marriage was even more of a power struggle than the entire betrothal had been, and it was driving Cailan crazy. He dug his fingers into the small loaf of crusty bread and tore a chunk off, imagining it was one of Loghain's braids. How he'd love to snip off those lank plaits and throw them off the top of Fort Drakon…or better yet, pull them out to the sides until perhaps the Teyrn's head split in half. "He could help by letting us run the country, since that is our job," Cailan told her.

"Did it occur to you that he is letting us run the country, by assisting us?" she asked, taking a sip from her wine goblet and setting it down in precisely the same spot it had been. "Maric left a great deal of unfinished work, Maker rest his soul," she said, bowing her head.

"He left work for me to do, and I was doing a fine job of getting it done. Once I deposed your father," Cailan said.

"There's so much else that is unfinished though," Anora argued, laying her fork and knife on the edge of her plate. "What your father left for you to do was but a small fraction of what remains to be done."

"Well. I wouldn't know that, since the two of you have all but barricaded me from entering _my_ study," Cailan told her, smiling across the table and squeezing his bread in one hand. "As the king of this nation, I would do what's best for it. But I need to be allowed to do it, first," he said. He balled up his napkin in his lap, crunching and tugging at the fabric rather than overturn his dinner plate in frustration. He doubted that even if he did that Anora would bat a single lash. Control. She reveled in it, just like her father.

She gave the slightest incline of her head, and an elven servant melted out of the shadows to take Anora's plate of half-eaten dinner. "Send my compliments to the cook?" she asked in a voice that dripped honey. "Circumstances that had nothing to do with her skill in the kitchen caused me to lose my appetite." She met Cailan's eyes, her gaze hard and cold as the icy tundra rumored to be south of the Korcari Wilds. "Your father's passing has been difficult for you; I haven't wished for you to be burdened by the affairs of state."

Cailan laughed. "That's the best you have? Come Anora, we both know you're smarter than that, and could come up with better excuses." As soon as he said it though, her stoic mask faltered and a flush of pink crept up into her porcelain cheeks. He sighed. Perhaps she was being sincere, after all. But it was so hard to discern sincerity; it always had been, at least for him. Raised in comfort and privilege, he was used to people telling him half-truths and outright lies. "I'm sorry, Anora," he said at last as he mopped up juices with his bread. He wasn't hungry anymore, but he wasn't going to send a nearly full plate back to the kitchens just to prove a point.

"I truly am sorry for the situation being what it is," Anora said, her voice trembling ever so slightly. She laid her napkin on the table and rose to take her leave. Cailan remained seated, more playing with his food than taking an interest in eating it. She waited a moment, but he didn't rise; she expected him, as a royal, to stand on ceremony even in the privacy of their home. Tonight he was in no mood to play slave to etiquette, so she left with no other sound than the swishing of her skirts.

But even after that conversation Cailan still found himself on the losing end of the struggle. Then again, he wasn't sure he'd ever stood a chance against both Mac Tirs from the beginning. First, it was the slightly increased tariffs on incoming trade; Cailan didn't even know about it until Seneschal Garion brought the message from an irate Orlesian captain. That was fun to deal with. And then there was the slightly increased taxation on the bannorn's cereal grains. Dealing with Esmerelle's people was never fun under the best of circumstances, and these were decidedly not those circumstances.

Cailan found himself wandering past the study even at the oddest hours of the night, when Anora was sleeping and he assumed Loghain would have been as well. But the door was always closed, with the faint orange glow of a lit lamp shining under the door and Cailan knew the Teyrn was still busy doing his job for him. And while Cailan could find vellum and a quill easily enough, the royal signet seal was in the always-occupied study. Cailan thought about staging another coup, as he had a few months before, but now that he and Anora were married, it didn't seem the best choice to help keep peace in the marriage.

So Cailan suffered the subtle indignities quietly. But when, one night, Anora straddled him and pinned his wrists over his head with her dainty little hands? That was the last straw.

Oh she was cute and coy, and he didn't deny the rush to his nethers as she held him down and trailed her tongue over his bottom lip. The way her pert nipples brushed against his chest, the way his erect member felt her soft warmth _near_ him, but not _around_ him. She moved slowly back and forth, the friction driving him to madness; he tried to moan, but she covered his mouth with hers, all the while her hands pinning his while he struggled to find his way into her and she absolutely refused.

He could have broken her hold at any time; Anora was strong, but he'd trained with a two-handed greatsword for years. Yet the way she held him, so secure in her own power? He couldn't help but succumb to the imposed restraint, and when he finally stopped struggling and let her have her way, it was the best sex he'd ever had.

And it made him furious.

Even worse was the rosy glow in her cheeks the next morning, even as her posture was perfect and her hair was coiled into neat braids at the nape of her neck. Her slight smile and sparkling blue eyes exuded confidence, and the way she nibbled her toast without dropping a crumb softly whispered, _control_.

Cailan finished his breakfast and put on his blank smile. The one that made people underestimate him. "I think I'll stroll the market this morning," he said, and drained his mug of tea. "Will I have the lovely Queen of Ferelden on my arm?" he asked, batting his eyes even though he fully expected the head shake and polite refusal she gave. Perfect.

* * *

><p>"Leave the lamp," Cailan said when Anora came to bed well past the midnight hour. He set aside his reading and stood to greet her. "I'd like to be able to see you," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and nuzzling into her neck while his manhood pressed against her from the back.<p>

She wriggled away and worked at the sashes and buttons of her gown, not facing him. "Cailan, you do know how late it is, right?" she asked, trying to shrug away as he helped her shed the dress and she stood, back to him, in her smallclothes. "I've been working on…"

He spun her around and kissed her, hard, his tongue forcing into her mouth and trapping her against him. Her arms were pinned against his chest and he worked the clasp of her breast bindings with expert fingers. "I've been working on something myself," he whispered, flicking her earlobe with his tongue and grinning at the slight shudder she gave in response. He gently turned her again and worked at the pins in her coiled braids, dropping them onto the floor in a wild disarray instead of into the silverite coffer that had belonged to his mother on the vanity.

"Cailan, please…" she murmured, but he only kept working her hair loose with one hand while the other trailed down between her breasts and teased the band of her smallclothes. Her perfect porcelain skin bristled with gooseflesh as his hand cupped her but did nothing else. She squirmed against him, but he moved with her, always just out of reach of relief. At last her braids were down and unraveled. She looked a totally different person in the soft lamplight with her hair falling in long, golden waves almost to her hips.

"Take off your smallclothes," he said, reaching around her to cup her breasts in his hands. "Now," he added, licking her ear to jolt her into compliance. She wriggled to kick off the offending garment while he saw her clenching her jaw, still trying to maintain control.

She turned around and reached up to cup his face with one hand and kiss him, while the other hand drifted down. She inhaled sharply when he caught her wrist, but he only smiled and led her over to the waiting bed and fell back, with her on top of him.

Anora smiled, her curtain of golden hair falling into a pool around them and Cailan thought she'd never looked quite so lovely. The lamp softened and warmed her eyes, and there was a flush in her cheeks that he'd put there. As her kisses grew more desperate, he reached for her and then she grabbed his hands in hers. And moved them over his head and pinned them there while her very presence teased his engorged member.

"Why are you laughing?" she asked suddenly, sitting up and trying to shake her hair out of her face to no avail. "Cailan, what's so—oh!" She gasped as he easily lifted her off of him and pinned her down with her long, loose hair beneath her, as if she were floating on an ocean of spun gold. He grasped both her wrists in one hand while the other trailed up and down her torso, making her shudder. He smiled and descended upon her with a deep kiss, and the whole time she pulled against his grip. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his purchase from earlier in the day.

"Know what this is?" he asked.

Anora squinted in the dim light. "Is that… silk?"

"Orlesian silk," Cailan said. He shook it out so she could see it was actually a scarf finely woven in shades of pink and violet silk. "I thought it would look lovely on you." He trailed the gossamer fabric along her chest.

"It is very beautiful, but a gift? Now?" Anora asked.

Cailan pushed her back and climbed atop her, effectively pinning her to the mattress. He took her wrists in one hand again, and then laid them across the twisted length of silk. He bent down to kiss her, freeing her wrists, but she was so caught in the moment she didn't move them. And by the time she thought to, she couldn't.

"Cailan!" she exclaimed, and her blush had nothing to do with arousal. She pulled against the silk, but his knot held. "Untie me," she said.

"I think not," he said with a grin as she continued to struggle against the bonds. He grabbed the loose ends of the scarf and pulled her up, looping her bound wrists around his neck so she was forced to face him. "What would you like me to do?" he asked, dipping in to tease at her neck and collarbone with his lips and tongue.

"I want you to untie me," she said, craning her neck to allow him more access to her sensitive areas. He just shook his head and kissed her, forcing his tongue into her mouth and tasting her as if he'd never done so before. There was a fascination to her indignation, and if he had to keep them both up all night to explore every aspect of it, he would.

"It's not going to happen," he told her at last, lifting her chin and forcing her to meet his gaze. In the glow of the lamp there was no missing his intensity, nor the fact that he was completely serious. His other hand glided down and felt her, savoring the fact that for all her protests, she was warm and slick and ready for him. He let his fingers work her while her bound hands pulled against his neck and she wriggled into his touch, desperate for release.

Her back arched and a low cry began in her throat, but he held one hand still within her and pressed two fingers of the other hand to her lips. "Not now," he said. "Understand?" He lightly touched her sensitive spot and she jolted against him. He felt her hands clench, but she nodded.

Cailan slipped her arms from around his neck and tied the loose ends of the scarf around one of the carven wooden posts of the headboard. "Anora, what am I going to do with you," he said, resting on his side and trailing his fingers back down to tease at her again. "There's always more of this…" He slid in and out of her, enjoying the uneven redness of her cheeks and the faint sheen of sweat glistening on her body. His thumb worked at her nub and she gasped before crying out. Cailan removed his hand and grabbed another scarf, this one done in shades of pale blue that almost matched Anora's eyes. He held the wad to her face so she could smell it, feel the silk against her lips. "Do that again, and I have no qualms about gagging you, either," he said, brushing errant locks of hair out of her sweaty face. "Clear?"

"Crystal," she murmured, her lower body writhing toward him while her arms still pulled against the headboard.

From then on she whimpered, biting into her lip or turning her face into the pillow whenever his hand worked her close to the edge, and even giving him a look of fear when she did cry out just a bit as his tongue pleasantly caressed her. Cailan only smiled, though in truth he was having a time of it keeping his own release under control.

Finally he straddled her, his manhood just touching her entrance while she strained toward him, and he kept himself unnervingly out of reach. "What do you want, Anora?" he asked.

"Untie me," she said, though her chest was heaving as she gasped for breath and her legs were trembling against him. She'd given up tugging on the scarf and now had both hands wrapped around the post.

"Anora. What. Do. You. Want," he said, teasing against her. She turned her face away, trying to bury it into her hair and the pillow, trying to avoid the answer she knew he knew she wanted to give.

"You, Cailan," she groaned, her voice muffled.

"Well. Can't argue with that," he said.

* * *

><p>He smoothed her long hair out of her face and kissed her lightly on her lips, swollen from biting down earlier. "You know I love you," he said to her. She just nodded, eyes closed, breathing shallow, still trembling a bit. He wiped the sweat from her brow with the blue scarf and tossed it to the floor at the bedside, then got up to douse the lamp. He heard the bed creak as she tried to shift and see what he was doing.<p>

"Cailan, are you going to let me go, now?" she asked, still just a bit breathless.

Cailan climbed back into bed with her, feeling his way up her outstretched arms and fingering the knotted silk around her wrists. He kissed her once more and pulled the blankets over them. "I don't think so," he said, and closed his eyes.


	2. Turning the Tables

**Author's Note:** I was purposely ambiguous/unresolved at the end of "The Upper Hand". But Cailan's not a bad guy, and he did prove his point sooner than the last line of the story. Those Theirin men: they have a sense of humor, but no one ever said it was a _good_ sense of humor! Anyway, here is the aftermath. Definitely more in my comfort zone to write than the "The Upper Hand" was. Ahem.

* * *

><p><em>Turning the Tables<em>

The bedchamber was bathed in dull gray pre-dawn light, just bright enough for Anora to make out Cailan's profile. Her husband slept peacefully, chest rising in regular rhythm, face calm and composed. But he almost looked like he was smiling. He always did, as a matter of fact. It was hard to tell if he took anything seriously with that permanent smirk. And right now, she felt like he was smirking at her expense.

She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. After a little teasing from him, and some outright begging from her, he'd released her hands and kissed her. But his lips were soft and tender, and his embrace warm and strong. Such a change from the fiery passion they'd shared when she'd been bound, but no less welcome. She stroked his flaxen hair, spread on the pillow and wondered what dreams filled his mind when he slept after spending himself so rigorously.

Anora sat up, the sheets falling away from her bare breasts, and she hastily pulled her long, loose hair over her shoulders to cover up best she could. It was silly, in the privacy of their chamber and even more so in the heart of their marriage bed, but Anora had always been a creature of propriety. Even when she wasn't feeling entirely proper, as she was now.

Cailan stirred a bit, but didn't wake. Anora carefully placed each foot on the plush carpet covering the cool stone floors and made her way over to the vanity. She felt something underfoot, something metallic and strangely shaped, and crouched down to feel along the carpet. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and brushed the floor as she squinted in the gray half-light and realized the floor was scattered with her hairpins.

Anora shifted to her knees, the floor chill beneath her bare shins and gooseflesh breaking out over her bare arms and torso. She felt along the stones for pins, keeping count in her mind without realizing it. She sighed; she was still three short, but it was likely they'd been kicked under the bed in those first throes of foreplay. She got to her feet and tiptoed over to the vanity, where she dropped the pins into Queen Rowan's silver coffer. Her hand lingered on the metal lid; anything she knew of Cailan's mother, her own father had told her. She knew her father held the former Queen in high regard, and sometimes caught him gazing idly up at the portrait of her over the fireplace in the royal study.

She ran a silver comb through her hair one section at a time, attacking the tangles like she might a difficult mathematics problem. Cailan often asked her to leave her hair down more often; he would stand behind her, caressing a long lock while she or Erlina, her serving girl, worked to braid another section. She cast a glance over at him. He'd rolled over onto his stomach, his hair obscuring his face and one arm dangling off the side of the bed, and she smiled. He never seemed to grasp practicality. Maker's breath, if it hadn't been for Maric's death, she would still be betrothed. She'd watched the other young noble ladies fulfill betrothals while she waited for Cailan's formal proposal. But he'd always been preoccupied; with what, she wasn't sure; he was secretive most of the time, so she assumed it was other women.

Anora attributed his current preoccupation to grief over his father and the suddenness of his new role as king. She gathered all of her hair into one fist and pulled it over her shoulder. Though she could easily summon Erlina, there was something calming about braiding her own hair as she sat, naked and vulnerable, at the vanity in the pre-dawn light.

She divided her hair into three equal sections and began to braid, taking her time and pulling the one thick plait tight as she watched Cailan sleep. The pink Orlesian silk scarf he'd used to bind her last night lay in a crumpled heap on the floor at his bedside: where it had landed after he untied her, and she threw the wad of fabric at him. A tingle zinged up her spine. She'd been restrained, and yet it had been some of the most chaotic lovemaking she'd experienced with her husband.

Growing up in Gwaren, and betrothed to Cailan, she'd often been alone and under the careful eye of nursemaids, governesses, and tutors to assure that her eyes were kept occupied by her studies and knowledge of what was proper. As she grew, it became difficult to be with Cailan and not act on her desire for him, so she'd schooled herself to put up walls that would keep temptation at bay. She'd been educated in the Chant, and knew of desire demons, and would not be responsible for the downfall of Ferelden's crown prince.

The problem was, it left her inexperienced in the ways of lovemaking, and unprepared for someone with Cailan's appetites. And walls built so high and thick over such a long period of time were difficult to tear down. _You don't need to control yourself so with your husband,_ she told herself. She tied off the end of her single long braid and tossed it over her shoulder, where it thumped gently against her back. But much as she tried to convince herself to let go, she also knew that, of the two of them, her controlled, analytical mind was what Ferelden needed. If Cailan were allowed to descend into his grief and ignore his duties, the country could fall. She'd grown up on her father's stories of what it took to win Fereldan independence, and what it took to rebuild the nation after the rebellion; she couldn't let the country fall, not on her watch.

Anora rose and grabbed her dressing gown from the hook next to the door. She wrapped the pale blue silk around her, marveling that the material could feel so lovely against her skin this way, and so infuriating when turned from ornamental scarf into a restraint. She ground her teeth as she looked at her peacefully sleeping husband again. Yes, last night had been amazing. Yes, he had eventually released her, and showered her with tender kisses and proclamations of love. Yes, two people could play at this game.

* * *

><p>Cailan cracked his eyelids and promptly squeezed his eyes shut again once the sun assaulted him. He reached over with one hand and patted the mattress, but Anora was not there. He looked up, bleary eyed, and surveyed the bedchamber, but his wife was gone. Ah well, she was an early riser by nature.<p>

When he tried to sit up, however, he found his left wrist was manacled in light blue silk that had then been knotted to the bed post. Cailan sighed and dropped his head back on his pillow. Even with one free hand the knot would be difficult to undo. He should have known that Anora, growing up in a vital port town, would have learned how to tie a variety of knots.

* * *

><p>Anora looked up from the accounts she'd been reading over and marking when Cailan walked in, dressed in simple breeches and spun tunic, his hair loose around his face and shoulders. "Good morning, love," she said with a smile. "I've had breakfast kept warm for you."<p>

He returned her smile. "Thank you, Anora," he said, taking a seat. "You are not unwell after being kept up so late with your work, I trust." He glanced over at a serving elf and nodded once, but with a smile on his face, gesturing to his teacup. The elf filled it quickly, and though he averted his eyes, Cailan gave a nod of gratitude.

"Yes, thank you. And I trust you rested well this morning, even after I disturbed you?"

The stared at one another across the table, blue eyes locked, grins beginning to form. But with servants about, they remained the very vision of propriety and etiquette. Even when Teyrn Loghain entered, red-eyed and gruffer than usual after a night spent with his head on the desk in the study, he could tell nothing was amiss.

However, instead of a napkin, Cailan had spread a blue scarf across his lap. And Anora had fashionably knotted a lovely Orlesian silk scarf in delicate pink around her neck. They glanced at one another and tried not to laugh out loud. And that night, Anora was surprised to find that Cailan had lit a fire in their chamber, though it was not a cold night by any means.

He gathered her in his arms and dipped his head to kiss her while his fingers undid the knot about her neck, and she tugged the length of silk out from his belt loop. And then together, they tossed the lengths of silk onto the flames.


End file.
